GRAND TERRACE – The astonishing decline of U.S. Roman Catholics who take religious vows continues to impact the church locally,as the only Catholic order born in the Inland Empire is disbanding.

The Sisters of St. Benedict of Riverside have decided that dwindling membership can no longer support Holy Spirit Monastery at the base of Blue Mountain. “It’s just reflective of a trend that we’re seeing in what we would call vocations to the consecrated life,” said John Andrews, spokesman for the Diocese of San Bernardino. The Sisters of St. Benedict declined to comment for this story, but according to Andrews, just one of the monastery’s six remaining sisters will stay in Southern California, with the rest heading back home to Indiana, where they ministered until coming here in the 1960s.

According to Andrews, the Benedictine Sisters came to the diocese in 1966 to staff Catholic schools in the Inland area.

They eventually incorporated as the Sisters of St. Benedict of Riverside, where they established a convent, according to Andrews.

The sisters during the mid-1980s purchased land from the diocese on the edge of Grand Terrace, near Christ the Redeemer parish, Andrews said.

Holy Spirit Monastery, their home and a place for spiritual retreats, has been there since 1987, according to Andrews.

In 2002, a meditation labyrinth 80 feet in diameter was built next to the monastery.

The labyrinth has 28 turns to get to the center and 28 turns to get out, and is patterned after the labyrinth at the Chartres Cathedral near Paris, France, which was built around 1200.

While the sisters aimed to grow the monastery to 50 nuns, the community peaked at 20, Andrews said.

He said the limited number of nuns has declined nationwide, in part because the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s opened up ways for women to work in the church outside of monastic life.

The number of religious sisters in the United States stood at 179,954 in 1965, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostalate at Georgetown University. That number fell to 57,544 in 2010.

There are 155 nuns in the Diocese of San Bernardino, according to Andrews.

The number of parishioners in the diocese, which serves San Bernardino and Riverside counties, has nearly tripled during the past 20 years, from 420,000 in 1990 to an estimated 1.2 million.

The diocese is actively encouraging its members to consider the “consecrated life” of religious communities and the priesthood.

“The issue is, this kind of push was not happening 15 or 20 years ago,” Andrews said. “There was a feeling (that) we don’t have to do this, we’re OK.”

It is estimated that over the course of 45 years, the Benedictine Sisters served in more than 30 parishes, hospitals, schools, retreat centers and detention facilities in the diocese.

They all have retired from positions ranging from parish leader to school principal, but continued to host prayer circles and retreats at the monastery.

Bishop Gerald Barnes said in a statement posted on the diocese’s website that the sisters’ retirements have impacted the monastery significantly because a monastery relies on the income generated from the sisters’ full-time ministry work. Barnes said that “the sisters do acknowledge that this has been a difficult decision for them to reach.”

He thanked the sisters for their work and their impact in the community.

Andrews said they will continue to live there until late summer.

“I think we’re losing a piece of our history with them going,” Andrews said. “I think they offered a place for people – their monastery had a labyrinth on the property where people were able to spend some time in prayer and reflection.”

And they’ve shaped decades of students as teachers and principals, prison ministers and pastoral coordinators – the leader of a parish when a pastor is not available, he said.

“They educated many of our Catholic school kids and launched them out in the community in a very good way, a very important way,” Andrews said.

Their daily life revolves around three communal prayer times each day, as well as communal meals. Most the rest of the day consists of Scripture reading, private prayer and other spiritual matters, Andrews said.

The sisters plan to sell the property but don’t yet have a buyer, he said.

Ryan Hagen covers the city of Riverside for the Southern California Newspaper Group. Since he began covering Inland Empire governments in 2010, he's written about a city entering bankruptcy and exiting bankruptcy; politicians being elected, recalled and arrested; crime; a terrorist attack; fires; ICE; fights to end homelessness; fights over the location of speed bumps; and people's best and worst moments. His greatest accomplishment is breaking a coffee addiction. His greatest regret is any moment without coffee.